Geopolitics and the Genealogy of Free Trade Zones in the Persian Gulf.

Free trade zones have been championed by policy makers as important mechanisms for the “economic liberalisation” and “globalisation” of the Middle East. While a growing number of political economists have begun to investigate the performance of these projects, few have considered why states voluntarily limit their sovereign powers by establishing these liberalised territories. To address this question, this paper studies the Jebel Ali free trade zone in Dubai (UAE) and the Kish free trade zone in Iran, two of the earliest such projects in the region. Rather than being products of neoliberal ideology or pressure from advanced industrial economies, the essay argues that paradoxically these zones were developed by the Iranian state and Dubai emirate to project territorial sovereignty in turbulent geostrategic settings and moments as well as nodes to circulate rent to domestic and international members of ruling coalitions. The geostrategic and state-building logics informed when, where, and how these projects were developed. More generally, this analysis illustrates that the Middle East is neither absent from the process of globalisation, nor does it simply respond passively and reactively to this complex process. Free trade zones are an example of local strategies working in consort with international processes to fashion new forms of economic and political interconnectedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]